ShareThisBy TOM HANSON
Thursday, October 12, 2006
Terry-Jo Myers didn't have the nerve to invite Patty Berg, the LPGA legend, to her wedding. Even though they both lived in Fort Myers, she couldn't muster the courage.
"Why would Patty Berg want to come to my wedding?" Myers recalled. "I was a first-year tour player and she was Patty Berg. She was amazing. She was an icon. I wouldn't have had the courage to invite her to my wedding."
Berg, who died Sunday at the age of 88, was an icon and more.
Berg had won 60 golf tournaments. She had 15 major titles to her credit. She was one of the founding members of the LPGA. She was a Hall of Famer.
When Myers walked down the aisle on Feb. 13, 1987, her nuptial-related butterflies doubled. There stood Berg among the guests.
Myers said she was both stunned and appreciative. Berg invited herself. She called Myers' father and said she wouldn't miss the wedding for the world. Berg considered Myers, as she did every LPGA player, family.
"That was so special to me that she would go so far that she wanted to be at my wedding," Myers said Sunday after learning of Berg's passing. "She doesn't realize how much that meant to me. It meant the world."
Berg never realized how much she meant to women's golf and the game of golf.
From her signature Wilson golf clubs to the countless clinics and demonstrations, Berg's contributions to the game are immeasurable.
She became one of the first women to become a professional in 1940. She won the first-ever U.S. Women's Open in 1946, beating Betty Jameson, 5 and 4, back in the day when they played match play.
"That was a wonderful thing," Jameson said Sunday from her home as she held a picture of her and Berg taken back in 1952. "That was the first time we ever had match play and we had a great head-to-head match but she drilled me. I got her back the next year when it was stroke play."
Besides playing events, Berg worked tirelessly promoting Wilson Sporting Goods, her sponsor and her main employer even until her death. She was so loyal she wouldn't sign a golf ball unless it was a Wilson. And if someone didn't have a Wilson ball, she took their address and mailed them one with the signature.
"She probably did more for women's golf than anyone else," said Peggy Kirk Bell, a former president of the United States Golf Association and a charter member of the LPGA, on Sunday.
Kirk Bell noted that Berg won the Titleholders event, a major championship, six times. With each win came a check worth about $50. But Berg never cashed a one.
"She always donated her winnings at the Titleholders to junior golf," Kirk Bell said. "She said winning was all of the good fortune she needed."
Berg also was one of the visionaries who met in a small New Orleans hotel room in 1949 and decided to create the LPGA Tour, which started a year later. She became the tour's first president and did everything from promoting events to pounding in stakes around the course.
"She loved to talk," Jameson said. "If we had a spokesperson on the LPGA Tour it was Patty."
Berg will be most remembered for the "Patty Berg Swing Parade." This wasn't an actual parade. But it had the pageantry of the Macy's or Tournament of Roses parades. It certainly had the following of a Thanksgiving or New Year's Day event.
The clinic became her trademark. With American flags flanking the driving range, the demonstration became tradition before every LPGA event in the early days and then at the U.S. Women's Open up until 2001.
Fellow players knew Berg's script by heart. She told the same jokes. She performed the same skits. Yet, fellow tour players always showed up to watch it. They still laughed at all of the one-liners they had heard a thousand times. They still smiled when she'd turn her visor six different ways to represent six different ways -- high, low, hook, draw, straight and small - to hit a shot.
"If she was giving a clinic I would always go," LPGA Hall of Famer JoAnne Carner said. "Her clinics were really good. And I knew the whole script and had seen everything but I would still go."
Marlene Hagge, another one of the LPGA founders, recalled a tournament in the 1950s in Minnesota when the person who was scheduled to do the clinic canceled at the last minute.
So they called Berg. And she wowed the sponsor.
"I was standing next to the sponsor and he says, 'Boy she's great, considering we gave her only five minutes' notice,'" Hagge said. "Little did he know, she could have done the clinic in her sleep. It was her life."
Golf was Berg's life. She even incorporated her family into her routine. She became famous for her sister act, which was much like the movie, "Seven Brides for Seven Brothers."
Berg portrayed each of her sisters and their hypothetical swing problems. From a short backswing for Helen to her sister May, who took the club inside on the backswing but brought it back on the outside, Berg had them all down pat.
"Her sister act was a classic," Kirk Bell said.
And Berg was a classic. From making the rookies clean her golf shoes to her textbook golf swing, she was one of kind with a one-of-a-kind finish.
Whether it was a clinic or a speech, Berg always had the same final words.
"God bless you and God bless America" she famously said everywhere.
"Patty was so vocal about her love of the tour, her love of her country and her love of God," Myers said. "Those are the three things that she loved about life. She was just amazing."
Myers said she and Berg never talked about the wedding day. And Myers doesn't remember what gift Berg brought. But her presence was enough.
"For Patty Berg to come to my wedding, it was like she was embracing me into the Tour family," said Myers as her voice cracked while retelling the story.
Berg embraced many of us without knowing it. She graciously shared her God-given talent skills and her passion for life. She sacrificed so much without asking for anything in return.
God bless Patty Berg.
